Online Certificate Courses in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean

This project to be carried out in the 2006-2010 funding cycle will enable students and government and civilian personnel to earn the UH advanced certificate in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean entirely on line. The advanced certificate is awarded when a student completes five, three-credit, third- and fourth-year courses in the target language. The NFLRC has already supported the creation of four advanced on-line courses, two in Chinese, and one each in Japanese and Korean. In partnership with the UH East Asia NRC, the UH NFLRC will support the conversion of an additional complement of courses so that by the end of the current funding cycle an advanced certificate program will be entirely on line in Chinese and Japanese and partly on line in Korean.

The Chinese certificate program has been targeted for completion in the next grant cycle because UH has conducted a significant number of advanced, intensive Chinese courses for the military in the last five years, and a cohort of learners will be poised to complete the certificate program once it is available on line. The Japanese certificate has been targeted for completion because it is the most commonly taught language at UH and the most commonly taught Asian language in the US. The Korean certificate has been targeted for completion soon after the current grant period.

The project will be directed by David Hiple, Director of the UH Language Learning Center and Associate Director of the NFLRC. The development of the course Web sites will be coordinated by Stephen Tschudi, Instructor of Chinese and Instructor of Technology in Foreign Language Education at UH. One faculty member per course has also been identified to realize the online course conversion.